The Hallelugah Singers Reunion Concert Oct 23 & 24

843 902 4799
liz@speakersinternational.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Marlena Smalls announces the Hallelujah Singers Reunion Concert featuring original singers and new vocalists. More than two dozen voices will join for this unprecedented program with two special performances of plantation melodies and spirituals. The fall program will be presented October 23 and 24 at 7:30 pm at First African Baptist Church at 601 New St. in Beaufort, SC. Open seating is limited beginning at 7 pm. Contributions will be accepted to support the group’s ongoing Fa Da Chillun national education program.

Smalls organized the Hallelujah Singers in 1990 to preserve the melodies and storytelling unique to the South Carolina Sea Islands. She was inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2004. She is known to international audiences for her role as Bubba’s Mom in the Academy Award winning film Forrest Gump where the Hallelujah Singers also performed.

The ensemble is a national art provider offering cultural enrichment through preserving and celebrating the heritage of the Gullah culture with language and traditions indelibly linked to West African heritage and its influence on the broad musical development.

Smalls travels extensively teaching the Gullah culture and entertaining in schools, auditoriums and festivals as well as for corporate meetings and associations, family reunions and weddings. The Hallelujah Singers have performed for the U. S. Congress, the South Carolina legislature, in Chicago’s Ravinia festivals, the Kennedy Center, the Spoleto Festival and the G-8 Summit.

The group has been designated a Local Legacy of South Carolina by the U. S. Library of Congress as part of the library’s Bicentennial Celebration. Other awards include the South Carolina Folk Heritage Advocacy Award, the Alpha Kappa Community Service Award, the Rockford (Illinois) Mayor’s Award, the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner award (Governor’s award for the arts), and the group was named as the South Carolina Ambassadors of the year in 1998.

For details, additional public events scheduled and mailing list sign up: www.HallelujahSingers.com .